RE: Whitley vs City of Lawrence

[Aaron Read <aread@speakeasy.net>]

At 10:58 AM 8/5/2003, Paul Hopfgarten wrote:
>I must disagree. First off, I don't think anyone without a reasonable
>command of the English language (regardless of whether the language is one's
>primary or not) should be getting a Batchelor's Degree, never mind a
>Master's (which one would hope would be the rock-bottom MINIMUM educational
>achievement of a Superintendent of Schools of a city even half the size of
>Lawrence).

While I agree with you Paul (and if you're going to be picky - it's 
"Bachelor's Degree"  :-)   many of my teaching fellows whilst I was a 
undergrad at BU would seem to put your theory down and down hard.  More 
than a few of them spoke fluent English, but with accents so thick I 
couldn't understand a word they said.  This was true for Asian, Middle 
Eastern, Eastern European and Western European teachers and teaching 
fellows I had.   All teachers by definition had a masters, many had 
Ph.D's.  And all TF's are grad students going for a masters or more.

Still, one wonders.  I know several people who are amazing teachers, they 
just aren't working as teachers.  Most of them don't have a masters.  By 
the same token, I had several teachers in college and elsewhere who had 
masters or Ph.D's and had no business being within 50 feet of a 
podium...gawd they were awful teachers.

And a superintendent is more a manager than a teacher, no?  I stand by my 
earlier post that I think he should have to pass the test, but I don't 
necessarily think the test is what proves he's a good superintendent.



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Aaron "Bishop" Read             aread@speakeasy.net
FriedBagels Consulting          AOL-IM: readaaron
http://www.friedbagels.com      Boston, MA